Overview and Design

Just Another Honeycomb Tablet?

Unless you are living in the Stone Age, it is nearly impossible to not notice the flood of tablets into the market this year, especially options from the Android OS camp. Google's tablet optimized OS, Honeycomb, is rapidly adopted by many brands to build their tablet models and Lenovo is no different.

The IdeaPad Tablet k1 is positioned as a device for the mainstream consumers. To ensure it's easily usable and has the proper impact of a media consumption platform, the K1 has specs equivalent to some of the larger tablets such as a 10.1-inch display, NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and a Google Android 3.1 OS. That's not everything about the IdeaPad Tablet K1. Lenovo has worked to tie-in some exclusive offerings that you can only find on the K1. We'll spill the details on the next page, but let's first have a good feel of the general design of the tablet:-

Design Aspects

One word to describe the physical appearance of the Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 - ordinary. Looking ordinary is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's a tried and tested design that wouldn't backfire on the company, but on the other hand, it does not make your product stand out from the crowd. As with most other tablets, the IdeaPad Tablet K1 has rounded edges and sports a glossy screen.

With a thickness of 13.3 mm, the IdeaPad Tablet K1 is considered decent among its peers (Acer Iconia Tab A500 at 13.3 mm, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer at 12.98 mm, Apple iPad 2 at 8.8 mm). However with a weight of 750g, it's among the heaviest in the 10.1-inch category. While one-handed operation is still possible, the hefty weight of the IdeaPad Tablet K1 may exert strain on your hand over some time.

In terms of build quality, the Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 has some demerit points. With its shell mostly made from plastic, the K1 looks and feels more like a toy - especially if you had bought one of the brighter colored backings like red. It lacks the premium feel of tablets in its class such as the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer. Moreover, the K1 tips the scale at 750 grams despite the plastic chassis. On another comparative note, the newer Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 also sports a mostly plastic build, but weighs only 565 grams. Even the Motorola Xoom (3G version) with its anodized aluminum build weighs lighter than the K1 at 730g. Handling-wise, the K1 scores some brownie points with its rounded corners and textured back, which assist you in having a better grip of the device.